I am not a journalist, nor am I a writer. I don’t belong to any political party, though I will admit that back in the day I was a paid-up Democrat until Meg Lees screwed us over. Now, I don’t believe in political parties at all; I find them terribly UN-Democratic. In my preferred world I would have actual elected representatives whose primary responsibility was to accurately represent their electorates – not the party, not men in grey suits – the punters, then get together with all the other reps to compromise and work together to run this country/state/council. I know, I know … but a girl can dream!

Graphic courtesy of the talented @TwoEyeHead who has some sheer gold on his site twoih.com

OK I will admit that I have been AWOL from news and social media in recent weeks. Yes, one of those people who have been reduced to the ‘don’t have a bloody clue and should not be given the privilege of voting’ status as they are clueless.

Life just sucks sometimes and the PM’s recent ridiculous faux pas or antics have not been high on my radar lately. I now have great sympathy for those punters out there whose eyes glaze over when anyone starts mentioning the ‘P’ word – POLITICS – at some stages in your life, it just doesn’t matter so much.

Having said that, I have endeavoured to edumacate myself in recent days. I’ve been reading heaps, going back through papers and reading tweets from tweeps who have helpfully given me the heads up on certain things they felt I should know (sincere thanks) in regard to recent current affairs.

So, in summary, this is what I have learned:

The PM has been jet-setting again, obviously finding it easier to swan about on the world stage than actually do any work here.

Hockey still hasn’t made many mates in the Senate and his budget hasn’t budged from where he and his cigar-smoking mate left it months ago.

Bishop has been doing her best to tell us that the trade sanctions Russia is smacking us with are not really the fault of Tony being ‘the man’ in trashing Putin.

Brandis did the dirty on Bolt and just maybe we all don’t really have a right to be a bigot.

Morrison has been playing linguistic Twister with the media, when really he wants to say that the esteemed Ms Triggs is full of shit, as obviously he knows best how to be humane to the poor buggers trying to get to our wide brown land. (Sometimes that sarcasm font really is imperative, when will someone invent it???)

Turnbull has been quietly chatting about media ‘reform’, well we all know what that means, hello … more power to the News Corp Deathstar.

Abetz informed any poor women who had an abortion back in the day and now have breast cancer that it was probably their fault. Geez on his form I am surprised he was not made minister for Health or Women? Shudder! Just had an awful image of the Salem Witch Trials.

Dutton is still playing silly buggers pretending to make pretty with the AMA to get his dodgy seven-bucks-a-pop doctor visits happening.

Pyne, ah he is steadily eroding that pesky equal opportunity to a decent education attitude that has been in place far too long. Luckily the self-entitled educational package is not over the line yet.

Hunt single-handedly won the race for who can destroy their portfolio the fastest with the approval of the largest coal mine in Australia – Barrier Reef, Reef? What Reef? :(

Brandis has been on fire, got two bites of the dumb cherry with his Metadata Meta Fail as yeah, we all trust this government to scrape every IP used in the nation ARGH!

BUT however bizarre the above are – and forgive me I could have missed a few highlights, as I said, still catching up here – Team Australia has to be the most weird.

Team Australia? WTF is that? I mean, I understand that ever since Tampa it has been the norm in this nation to scare the bejesus out of punters so that we don’t actually pay attention to the ‘real’ stuff going on right under our noses, but seriously? How the hell can dumping changes to racial discrimination laws morph into indiscriminate data retention and still be connected?

The name Team Australia itself conjures images of Tony Abbott in his budgies, malevolently stroking a big white cat on his lap, screeching:

We want all your interwebz, ALL OF IT! Terrorists! We have to fight all the terrorists! You are either with us or against us!

As I said, I have not been popping my head out of my personal box much recently so I could be reading this wrong, BUT it seems if you don’t want to help combat terrorism by giving the government and the AFP access to all your metadata (and pay for the privilege as the telcos sure as hell won’t be absorbing those extra costs), well, you are just not caring about terrorism and are un-Australian. I am assuming it is safe to infer that the opposite of Team Australia is that pollie favourite ‘un-Australian’?

So … I don’t want any telcos or the government getting their grubby little hands on my metadata so I must not be a candidate for Team Australia. Actually, from what I can see online, not too many, even in the fawning Liberal mainstay of the business community, want the government to access their metadata without due legal process. I mean, even old mate Costello doesn’t have a clue what the government is on about here. Does this mean that Team Australia is the exclusive realm of a minority of Australians?

I am just an ignorant middle-aged punter out in the regions so I could be wrong, though I am starting to think that this PM may achieve what no other politician in this country has ever been able to achieve: Australians being proud of being Un-Australian!

Dunno about you, but merrily traipsing along with the current government initiatives as criteria to be eligible for Team Australia inclusion seems pretty bloody sad to me and it’s not a team I want to be on :(

PS: Of course I have not mentioned all the political highlights in recent months, so feel free to edumacate me below, except Lambie’s ‘well-hung’ bloke aspirations, I can cheerfully give that a big swerve ;-)

Comments

Boy Noely, you sure are on fire today. Sometimes its good to have a little down time from politics doesn’t it, ‘tho I do hope your hiatus was for good reasons, not bad ones.
As for ‘Team Australia’, please note that the initials say the most TA. Guess that the man cannot get away from slogans or his ego. At the moment his overseas visit (yet again) is to try to gain some brownie points for himself, but I reckon that most thinking people can see through that little lurk.
As for the rest of that dreadful front bench, you know, the ones who are also hell-bent on destroying this country, well what can you say that can describe them properly without becoming crude & unrefined here. I just keep waiting for this stupid inane govt. to implode even further with great relish.
If everyone who is waiting for the ALP to get stuck into the Libs, they might have to sait a little longer. I think they realized quite a long time ago that the MSM & Murdoch are controlling what we should see, hear & think. Truths have been hidden from us forever haven’t they. It has taken their silence to actually highlight (or should I say), give daylight to just how the LNP had no ideas except those of the IPA and we are becoming more & more aware of who really is running the show.
I read just recently Rob Oakshot’s speech he gave to the Wheeler foundation. I really wish that we had more people like & him & Tony Windsor still in the parliament. Perhaps we could tap Rob on the shoulder & ask him if he would be interested in starting up a party of independents, you know, those people who really want to fend for the people who live in their electorates & are not beholden to the right or left of the parties who only want to stay in power.
Hope you can keep up your great articles Noely, I personally thoroughly enjoy them.

With 6.8% unemployed in Queensland and worse to come in next months figures it might be best to go AWOL again.

Next war coming up compliments of Abbott … might be best to go AWOL again.

Drought biting hard and Abbott/newman have nothing to say ….. might be best to go AWOL again.

Golly gosh Noely I don't know what to advise you to do …… have you thought about going AWOL again ?

On the bright side …. seeing as you live in Queensland your cheques from the repeal of the Carbon Initiatives should be arriving soon and newman's election promise to "lower the cost of living" should start kicking in.

Should you decide to go AWOL again keep your voting details up to date in the unlikely case the gutless bully Abbott decides to call an election.

WOW Noely cooking with gas now! Maybe you needed a break to recharge the batteries, but as you have pointed out there is so much fodder coming from this joke of a Government who has got the time to keep up with it all? I am curious to know how Hockey can smoke as many cigars as he does with his foot in his mouth so often? :/

Good on yer Noely – I assume you’re one of us Sunny Coasters who didn’t vote for Clive then? Hot Tip: To avoid my metadata being flogged off to the highest bidder, I’m thinking of becoming a ham radio operator. That form of communication hasn’t been digitised yet, has it?